China and the West

Moore, Marianne. Foreword to A Marianne Moore reader. (New York, N.Y. : Viking Press, 1961).
As antonym, integrity was suggested to me by a blossoming peach branch – a drawing by Hsieh Ho – reproduced above a New York times Book Review notice of The Mustard Seed Garden Manual of Painting formulated about 500 A.D. – translated and edited by Miss Mai-mai Sze, published by the Bollingen Foundation in 1956 and as a Modern Library paperback in 1959. The plum branch led me to The Tao of Painting, of which 'The Mustard Seed Garden' is a part, the (not 'a') Tao being a way of life, a 'oneness' that is tireless ; whereas egotism, synonymous with ignorance in Buddhist thinking, is tedious. And the Tao led me to the dragon in the classification of primary symbols, 'symbol of the power of heaven' – changing at will to the size of a silkworm ; or swelling to the totality of heaven and earth ; at will invisible, made personal by a friend at a party – an authority on gems, finance, painting, and music – who exclaimed obligingly, as I concluded a digression on cranes, peaches, bats, and butterflies as symbols of long life and happiness, 'O to be a dragon !' (The exclamation, lost sight of for a time, was appropriated as a title later).
Note : The dragon as lord of space makes relevant Miss Mai-mai Sze's emphasis on 'space as China's chief contribution to painting ; the essential part of the wheel being the inner space between its spokes ; the space in a room, its usefulness' in keeping with the Manual : 'a crowded ill-arranged composition is one of the Twelve Faults of Painting' ; as a man 'if he had eyes all over his body, would be a monstrosity'.